Shenanigans
by Mara93
Summary: The royal wedding is just months away so shenanigans reign supreme of course.  Broken dishes.  Mysteriously appearing statues.  A flirting handmaiden in awe of men's swords.  Oh, and the king is kidnapped.  Ah yes, shenanigans indeed.  AG fluffy fic


**Shenanigans**

**Rated **T

No spoilers, future fluff

**Disclaimer: **I disclaim. Merlin belongs to BBC/Shine.

Written for** rubber_glue **for her kind bid for** help_japan**

This if the first chapter of about four, give or take a few.

Chapter One:

_**Tables are for Whoopee**_

Three months before the grand ceremony, Camelot is aflutter with activity. The previous king's (_King Uther_) passing six months ago was a somber time. Threats from Morgana have in the past been volatile, but now with her defenses weakened by an increasingly strong Camelot guard, a beginning unification of kingdoms, _and a secret weapon_, the threat is not so dire. It's a happy time in Camelot thus. The king will soon be marrying his love, the Lady Guinevere, as she is now rightfully known.

Faces are happy, voices are jubilant, _and shenanigans are on the rise_, the final the reason why the Lady Guinevere discovers the most _interesting_ token in the hallway.

"Arthur?" She asks, as she stands just outside his quarters, knowing he can hear. Already his bed is made and she caught a glimpse of his movement earlier.

"Hmmm?" The young king asks.

"Can you come here for a moment?"

At Guinevere's request Arthur departs his quarters. Merlin does not tend to him as a manservant like he used to. Now more an assistant, and secretly known to _their inner circle_ to be a warlock, Merlin has many other important duties. Arthur has dealt with the issues of magic, showing initial shock when he found out about Merlin's secret, and then slowly, especially with the assistance of his soon-to-be wife, understanding acceptance. In fact, after the wedding he is contemplating returning magic to Camelot.

For now, since Merlin is busy with his assistant position, the king has a slew of servants tending to him. They're all good at their job, but it's definitely not the same. Begrudgingly, _he will never admit it out loud_, Arthur has realized that Merlin was his best servant ever. The ones tending to him now are atrociously admiring at times. It regularly grates on his nerves, hence why some mornings, like this one, Arthur has actually messily made his own bed and will be dressing himself. At the moment, he looks more peasant-like than king-like.

Arthur walks out into the hallway, seeing just the backside at first of his soon-to-be wife. She is wearing a striking lavender gown, her hair twisted into beautiful naturally falling curls.

He admires her longingly before she turns to notice. Guinevere has made the point that she would like to wait to do anything seen as, well, _er_, unseemly, before their marriage is confirmed on parchment. As for Arthur, he'd be _fine_ with unseemly behavior. In fact, if she decided to break her insistence, he'd be thrilled to share a night with her in his bed. Or hers for that matter. Either's fine. But uh, _er_, protocol and Guinevere's strong ways have not allowed him this. So every time he sees her he gets just a little bit more restless for that blissful _unseemly_ night.

As Guinevere turns around she catches Arthur's poorly state with widening eyes. His attire is certainly simple, pale white tunic and brown breeches, but it's the area above his neck that draws most her attention. His hair is mussed from recently leaving the pillow while his face is haggard with weariness.

"You look like you've done battle with a troll and lost." She smiles with a trickle of laughter, smoothing out his wayward locks of golden hair.

"Ah, don't say _troll_, not after the Katrina incident. And shame on you for looking so beautiful when you require me to keep my hands away, when they really would like to go _astray_."

"Who said anything about your _hands_ Sire?"

That makes the king grin as he caresses her cheeks and presses his lips warmly to Guinevere's. He didn't even see her yesterday, but for one moment as she entered the council room with her batch of new prodigies. It's been Guinevere's purpose _and hindrance_ to find the most suitable palace staff. It hasn't been entirely successful because few are as adept at their jobs as his Guinevere is. She's still a tad reluctant to be fully leaving her position as servant. But for over a year now her role has seen many changes; hence she is well enough prepared for this.

"Hands do not include your lips." Guinevere adds at the end of the kiss.

Arthur gestures downward with a smirk, using a ridiculous code name. "How about my tool?"

Her eyes widen at his suggestive remark, within suppressed snickering, as she feels his fingers come against her lower posterior. "Arthur." She warns.

He compromisingly elevates his hands to the safer part of her upper back, feeling as her warm lips daringly press against his.

_Not such a terrible compromise at all._

Guinevere sighs into the kiss, holding Arthur reverently. She too noticed that yesterday they barely saw each other; it's been like that for weeks now. He's always in meetings with other rulers and the knights. The kingdom itself is growing in stature and size as fallen villages from past battles with Morgana and her accomplices have brought to Camelot new citizens in need of security. With all these changes, the palace itself requires a strong hand to run it. Guinevere oversees the staff with full purpose. Never an idle woman, she doesn't mind the duty so much. It's just still very new to her. And it leaves little time to spend with her love, the king.

"You were right." Arthur groans now, burying his face into her voluminous curls of hair. That's one reason why he loves them so. _They hide him well_. "That I probably look terrible. I _feel_ it."

Hearing his groan of unhappiness and feeling the pressure of his head on her shoulder, Guinevere caringly strokes his back. "Trouble dealing with the adjoining kingdoms?"

"_Aaahh…" _

She smiles sympathetically at the muffled sound coming from his mouth, his face so deeply pressed into her hair that his voice is half its usual power. Arthur has always been first and foremost a man of action. When he was a boy and she just a girl she would observe from the side of her then mistress, the Lady Morgana who unfortunately now has other alliances, that he had a hard time staying still. At his father's side his boots would quietly tap the floor and his hands would shift around his utility belt. During speeches of visiting nobles his eyes would stray out the window to where the knights trained.

Now that he is a man, he is much more focused, caring about what visitors have to say, but she sees little tiny hints of it still. Those thick lips pout. His booted heel moves against the stone floor so subtly to alert that he is growing bored.

Finally lifting his head, Arthur faces Guinevere's watching midnight eyes, so attentive to his plight. "I swear Guinevere going into battle is easier. At least it's predictable. You live or die. There's no time for making a decision and then changing your mind. You have no luxury, if I should even call it that. This, on the other hand, a decision is made and then five minutes later there's a rebuttal. And I swear it's like a jousting match, starting all over at the beginning again. Square one was completed and now it's erased. Commence again. _Ahh_, it's tiring. And bloody boring! I nearly smacked my head on the table during Lord Lanier's diatribe yesterday. He drawled on for three hours about potato crops, the injustice of what we were proposing. Oh and astronomical clock issues. He wants to stay with the traditional."

"Potato crops?"

Arthur shakes his head at Guinevere's bewildered question. "_Don't_ ask. It'll take an additional three hours to explain." He smiles hopefully. "You know we can still do it."

Guinevere stares at him curiously. _"Discuss potatoes?"_

"My plan I told you back when we were first admitting our feelings. You know. To become a farmer. We'll get married, live together and no one will be the wiser for it. I'll find some land, you can tend to the house, and Merlin will do the rest."

Guinevere fists her hands over her hips, trying not to chuckle at how desperately he seems to want this at the moment. Politics is beating him in the head. "And what do you plan to do while we tend to all the work? Play with your swords?"

He grins. "I'll sit high upon a tree branch and order the two of you about."

"Fine, I'll just stay here and be queen, find some other man to become my king, and you can grow potatoes so Merlin can throw them at you." She winks at the last.

"_Ooooh_…" Arthur groans and gets a fierce look in his eye as he snatches her against his waist. "Only one king you'll be having and that's _me_. Don't think I didn't notice a week back how that Duke of Walder kept eying you. He's lucky I didn't pull out my sword."

She clasps to her intended's cheek with amusement and appreciation. Not that she covets strong jealousies. But a little bit of ire possessiveness from the man she loves is most definitely flattering. And in tune to the way she feels about him. "And I saw how Lady Madeline wanted to be _wooed_ by you."

He rolls his eyes, biting playfully at her bottom lip before delivering a warm kiss. "Didn't even give her a glance. You were tempting me so in that fiery red gown. Count your fortunes I didn't take you on the dining table, upsetting your plan for our first romantic night together. Because believe me my love I was thinking of it."

Guinevere's eyes widen, her body going a little too warm for morning niceties at Arthur's bluntness and predatory look right now. But if truth be told she too had noticed the very accommodating way the table was set up for-

Uh, _er, enough of that_. She'd just let him know this _one_ thing. "I had a few incendiary thoughts that night too. Blame how roguishly handsome you were in all that matching red on that. But I'm very glad you kept yourself in check. None too romantic for the soon queen and her king to be-

"Rutting? Nonetheless in full public display?"

"Arthur!" She hits his shoulder lightly, hearing his amused laughter. "Yes, well then fine, _'rutting'_. Totally inappropriate. We probably would have given poor Lord Richard an attack of the heart."

"Indeed, the man's over eighty."

They laugh together, smiling with ease. It's rare they get moments like this so when they can, they enjoy them to the hilt. Ever since their relationship increased in depth Arthur has taken to teasing her about private things and Gwen has delightfully surprised him by playing along. Even if consummation is something they haven't engaged in, they've enjoyed intimate touches, caresses, and leveling off pieces of strategically placed clothing.

Guinevere caresses Arthur's mostly smooth cheek. "The Duke of Walder didn't even tempt my interest. He was much too forward and pompous for his own good. Silly in his blue robes. You were much more appealing in your royal Pendragon attire."

They kiss again before Guinevere pushes at his chest, inserting, "Alright, now that we've managed to spend a few precious moments acting like a hopelessly lost courting couple without being interrupted once, may we get back to the business at hand? _What_, Arthur, is that _thing_?"

Its ugly beady eyes stare back at her as she glares at it.

"_Mmmgrrrmm_…" Arthur moans intelligibly, wanting a whole day where they can forget tempters, bores, shenanigans and palace politics, but seems bloody unlikely that will ever happen, so he turns downward to what she is pointing at, before looking sickeningly away. "It's hideous."

"My sentiments exactly." Guinevere agrees with a dry disapproving look. The _thing_ she is referring to is a stature that is about as high as her waist.

Arthur looks down at it again, before lifting his head with a groan. "It got even uglier."

Gwen waves her hands with exasperation. "How did it get here?"

He ponders it for a moment and then realizing it's _definitely_ the answer, gives her a knowing look.

Guinevere shakes her head, getting it quickly, something they've had conversations about before. _Not always pleasing ones_. "Oh _no_. You told me that they were done."

Arthur grimaces, trying to avoid the beady eyes that he insanely swears are following their every action. "I said that they are _coming_ to the end of it."

That is completely unacceptable to Guinevere. She takes one more look downward at _it_, and then turns the thing so it's fully in the king's view. It's extremely heavy so she has to scoot it laboriously over the floor to make it alter its direction. It's golden and sooty black, an eagle of some sort with actually a lion's body and some kind of raccoon's tail. It's almost like it was conjured up by one of Arthur's stories about wildly magical appearing beasts he would use with his father when needing to go out and rescue someone. "Arthur, in the past weeks there have been TEN of these atrocious things."

"Well they're very excited about it!" Arthur enthuses weakly, catching that his love is not falling for it at all. He mutters under his breath. _''And uh, there's definitely more than ten."_

She grimaces tightly.

Arthur groans. "Okay, look. It's like this. Gwaine and Elyan, _your brother I might mention_, the latter…"

Her hands knuckle at her skirts. "My brother he may be, but that doesn't mean I agree to every little thing he does. He's always somehow foolishly managed to find himself in the heap of trouble."

"Uh, _er_, right." _Should have known that one wouldn't work._ "Well anyway, Gwaine and Elyan on one side, Percival and Lancelot on the other. They are…" Arthur rolled his eyes upward because even he thought this was kind of ridiculous. But hey, it was definitely a funny distraction, most the time. Just as long as they didn't get too overzealous about it, _what harm done?_

"They are in a challenge against each other to find us the best wedding present."

Guinevere holds up the hideous eagle-lion-raccoon monstrosity barely an inch over the floor, _because once again it is terribly heavy_. "And _this_ is it? Do they realize that when we have children this will send them shrieking out of their beds?"

Arthur's face takes on a dreamy expression as he thinks about all the little Pendragons that will be running around the castle courtesy of his lovely Guinevere and his part that he will play in it too. And thinking of _that_-

She holds it in position that _it_ shines glaringly, blinding his vision. _The dream is rapidly shut down._ "Indeed. You're probably right about that." With a grumble he moves down to the floor to pick up the sickening statue, but feels the strain on his back tightly. "_Aaarrrggh_…bloody heavy. Guinevere, give me a hand please."

She rolls her eyes with exasperation. _What in their silly heads made them think that this type of thing would be a lovely WEDDING gift?_ As she struggles with her intended to get the thing into his room, both of them smacking against the wall at one moment or another, letting out groans of pain, Guinevere rants. "Couldn't they have gotten us something simple, like matching giant chess pieces to go with those downstairs?"

Arthur glares past his frustration as finally they come to his cupboard after nearly sprawling over his boots lying in the middle of the floor. "They are NOT giant chess pieces! You and Merlin always saying that! They're works of medieval art."

"They're almost as hideous as this thing. But at least they won't send our future children into night frights."

She stops as after clunking the thing down to the ground, the king reveals the interior of his cupboard.

"OH CAMELOT! There are THIS many? You've been hiding them from me! Arthur, there are enough to fill my little home with! You must get rid of these things!"

They're all there, a motley bunch of golden, black, silver, white and one even putridly shining yellow. Statues of the most strangest wildly blended concoctions of things she's ever seen. It's like some sick minded sorceress conjured them all.

He grimaces, for more than one reason as he shoves the heavy sod of a thing into his cupboard, fearing for a moment that this one added piece will send all the rest clamoring to the floor, smashing their feet. But uh, _er_, luck is on his side.

_For now anyway_. He manages to get it in and then swiftly closes the cupboard door. Once done, Arthur smiles impishly.

Guinevere gestures over to where half of his clothes are folded on a chair seat, purposefully hidden under the table. "So since you're filling your cupboard up with these trinkets you don't even have room anymore to put your clothing? Arthur, this is ridiculous! Tell them to take these things back to whatever market they got them at and let that be the end to this."

He rolls his tongue over his bottom lip, giving a half pout. As Arthur feels Guinevere's sharply midnight eyes start to fix on his face, he darts his blue ones to his bed, to the floor, to the window, _back to the beginning_.

He starts crossing the floor to pick up his boots and shove them into a corner, knowing Guinevere is impressed by tidiness. But she hasn't left her spot as now she scrutinizes him like a screwdriver finding its mark. _Oh no_. It's going to be like a dragon invasion.

"Arthur."

"They can't do that. Take these things back to the market."

She lowers her eyes meaningfully. "And why is that?"

He shrugs, acting like it's no big deal at all. _Really it's not._ "Because they didn't get them at the market. _Any_ market for that matter."

Guinevere moves to the table, taps her fingers upon it with growing impatience and a steely silence. "So where did they get them?"

He thinks about it and nods his head. _It's perfect_. He's the king of Camelot. He can make this work beautifully. Guinevere has always been impressed by acts of chivalry and the honor of knighthood. "On quests my Love. Our most distinguished Royal Camelot knights have traversed over barren foreign lands and crossed through deathly hindrances to-

Her fingers tap more quickly. _She smells a rat_.

"…putting their lives in danger, courageously fighting through the unforeseen threats to bring back to us these uh, _er_, lovely, tokens of love for their sovereign." He grins, thinking he couldn't have made that sound any better. _On the contrary_. Her tapping has reached a dangerous threatening pace. Her eyes narrow like that of a hawk circling, _haunting_ its prey.

"They're STEALING them?"

Arthur gives her a look of indignation as he fiddles with one of his swords, uncertainly polishing it with one of his _uh_, socks? "Of course they're not stealing them. They are Knights of Camelot who have honor, respect and-

"And have slunk down to becoming common thieves. What about Leon?"

"He has a brain." Arthur remarks dryly before realizing he's caught.

"UH-huh." She moves over to where he leans half against his bed, which is very poorly made by the way. Shaking her head at how he is actually _cleaning his sword with his sock_ she takes both away from his hands and states firmly, "You do realize that this could start a war my Love? _Yes?_ I doubt it very much that other kingdoms are thrilled or honored that your motley crew of knights has decided to snatch away their prized, albeit hideous looking, possessions. Don't you think they might be just a bit livid by that?"

He hates it sometimes when she gets so wise and thinks about things that he probably should have reflected on more. It _had_ crossed his mind, but not so pointedly as she has now put it. "First of all, _they're not motley_. And second of all, they're going down into underground parts of sometimes completely abandoned kingdoms. And the ones that aren't abandoned are most likely poorly ruled. Really, they're _not_ stealing. They're doing each kingdom a favor if anything."

Guinevere shakes her head. He definitely has such admirable pride for his knights but his argument is as thin as the shining top layer of her dress. "You're afraid to tell them, aren't you?"

He glares at that indignantly. "Not so much afraid. I'm not afraid at all! Just, well…"

Guinevere suddenly smiles, pressing her fingers to his pouting lips. Oh they are too undeniably arousing. She can just imagine, has had dreams, wicked hot wet dreams about how they will feel on her-

_Uh, well_. He's too ravishingly handsome to stay mad at for that long. "You don't want to upset them?"

Arthur shrugs boyishly. "They're doing it for _us_ Guinevere."

She laughs softly, the mixture of his adorable expression and fruitless explanation amusing and sweet. Arthur has always been fond of his knights, but the ones that he personally set up during Camelot's time of need are the _dearest_ to him, of course with Leon and add to that Merlin. "So they say."

He groans, tightening his hands around her waist, and pulling her unexpectedly down with him to his messily made bed. _That's better_, he thinks as his lips silence any more conversation. He has dreamed about this. Had wildly hard rushing dreams of having her in his bed, now just atop but with how messily he made it is, _that can easily be remedied_. She pushes away from him to breathe, fisting her hands against his chest.

"Arthur-

"Don't talk." He lifts his lips to hers once more, locking them. She moans, giving in. Arthur sighs contentedly.

**CRASH**

He groans. Why? _Why?_

Guinevere pushes at his chest. Sits straight up.

_Blasted ceramic dishes! Why not just turn everything to ironware?_

Then they wouldn't have this issue. And they'd be doing unseemly things in his bed. Instead she is now running outside to the hallway to see what just happened.

Arthur sluggishly follows his love, cursing under his breath every ceramic dish.

TTT

To be continued…

**Next time in Shenanigans: **

"_Well, well, well, seems the walking disaster has struck again."_

_That is completely inappropriate to call her such a name."_

"_Butterfingers better?"_

"_Hah hah! Beat you princesses again!"_

TTT

Feedback is lovely. Thank you for the lovely feedback for my other Merlin stories and putting my story on alert or a favorite list. So appreciated!


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